Islamabad Archive

Islamabad, Oct 25 – Target the suicide bombers before they are able to detonate the explosives strapped to their body, say Pakistani police after carrying out a research on suicide attackers’ behavioural patterns.

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of terror attacks as its army stepped up the offensive against the Taliban fighters in the country’s northwest.

‘Be sharply attentive and alert and hit the suicide attacker before he hits his target,’ states the counter strategy issued for the personnel of law enforcing agencies.

Inspector General of Police Syed Kaleem Imam told The News that counter strategy was required to tackle terrorism in these situations and he said the strategy would be successfully executed with the help of the people.

The police in Islamabad Saturday released a research-based outlook on behavioural patterns of suicide attackers – just before commission of the terrorist act.

The research by police experts included in depth examination of those involved in several suicide attacks in Islamabad.

The research reveals ‘a moving human bomb may be a young man between 18 and 25 years, with a plump look because of wearing an explosive jacket’.

‘He (The suicide bomber) might be wearing new clothes, not washed even for a single time and new shoes and might have trimmed his hair and beard. Due to continuous sleeplessness, his eye might be red.

‘He often does not pay attention to anyone while going for a kill and moves straight to his target. He may be fasting and keep on reciting. The handler of suicider points out the target only 10 to 15 minutes before attack, thus giving a short time to accomplish the task.’

Over 170 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the UN World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.

The most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.

On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck at a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. At least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed in a single day.

A twin suicide bombing Oct 20 at the International Islamic University here killed seven people.

On Oct 22, Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier in Islamabad.

A day later, 25 people were killed and 27 injured in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion in Mohmand Agency while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.

Islamabad, Oct 24 – Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has told his Iranian counterpart that Islamabad will extend all help to capture the militants responsible for the attack on the Revolutionary Guards in that country, a media report said Saturday.

During talks here with Malik, Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar gave him information about people helping the Jundallah terrorist group, responsible for the bomb attack on Iran’s military facility in Sistan province that killed 42 people last weekend.

Malik said Pakistan would not allow anyone to create differences between the two countries, the Online news agency reported. The two sides also agreed to set up a joint mechanism to strengthen intelligence sharing.

Islamabad, Oct 24 – At least 21 militants were killed in fighting with the security forces in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region, officials said Saturday.

In the past 24 hours till Saturday evening, the security forces killed 21 militants before taking control of Kotkai town, said Ather Abbas, director general of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).

Three soldiers were also killed in the operation, Xinhua reported.

Pakistani Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said Kotkai town was the main hub of the Taliban.

The terrorist network in Kotkai, hometown of Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, has been completely dismantled, Kaira said in a joint press conference with Abbas here Saturday.

Islamabad, Oct 24 – At least 27 people, including militants, were killed Saturday in a US drone attack in northwest Pakistan, media reports said.

The drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout in Damadola area of Bajaur tribal agency, killing 27 people and injuring several others, the ARY News channel reported.

The hideout was located near the house of Taliban deputy chief Moulvi Faqir Muhammad.

Officials said several militants were among those killed. The nephew and son-in-law of Faqir Muhammad were also killed. Faqir fled the compound 10 minutes before the attack, they said.

The militants were holding a meeting in the hideout at the time of the attack, Xinhua reported.

Damadola and its adjoining areas near Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province are considered to be the strongholds of Taliban.

The US has intensified drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan despite Islamabad’s protest against the offensives. Islamabad said the drone attacks killed more than 400 people in Pakistan since August 2008.

Islamabad, Oct 24 (DPA) A suspected US missile strike killed at least 14 people in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern region bordering Afghanistan Saturday, media reports said.

The attack targeted a Taliban hideout in the Bajaur tribal district, where the Pakistani military claimed victory over the militants early this year after months of fighting.

Private Duniya News television channel said 14 people were killed in the assault. Three foreign militants were among the dead.

Pakistan officially criticises US drone attacks inside its territory, arguing they violate the country’s sovereignty and spread anti-American sentiments.

Some US aerial raids have successfully taken out high-profile Taliban and Al Qaeda figures.

In early August, a similar assault in South Waziristan, another tribal district on the Afghan border, killed Pakistan Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Islamabad, Oct 24 – With the Taliban allowed to grow unfettered for more than a decade, there is ‘no longer anything unexpected’ about the terrorist acts ripping through Pakistan, an editorial in a leading English daily maintained Saturday, a day after 25 people were killed in a series of blasts across the country.

At the same time, it said the latest round of bombings had a ‘positive dimension’.

‘There is no longer anything unexpected about the terrorist attacks ripping through our country,’ The News said in an editorial headlined ‘Another day, another blast’.

‘But perhaps the latest rounds of bombings have a positive dimension,’ it said, adding: ‘They help lay out in the starkest terms the contours of the war we are fighting. This is a war for survival; it pitches the state of Pakistan and all those who represent it against people who seek its destruction. There no room for ambiguity and no possibility

of merely sitting on the fence.

‘There is reason to believe it is this sense of divide, the doubt over whether or not the Taliban were our real enemies that allowed them over the past decade to grow in number and strength,’ the editorial contended.

Holding that the Pakistani government failed to go after the Taliban ‘when the task could have been far more easily accomplished than is the case now’, the editorial said: ‘We were swayed in our resolve by those who insisted the militants presented no real threat; even that they were essentially good men and that our real fight lay with the US.

‘We are now paying the price for holding such beliefs and for allowing them to shape policy. The elements within the establishment who propounded this point of view have a great deal to answer for. They can now make amends only by doing all that is possible to eliminate a ruthless enemy, before it destroys our nation and all that is good within it,’ the editorial maintained.

Twenty-five people were killed and 27 injured Friday in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.

On Thursday, a Pakistani Army brigadier was shot dead while on Tuesday, six people, including three girls, were killed in a suicide bombing at the Islamic University here, the attack coming four days after the military launched a major offensive against the Taliban in the South Waziristan region along the border with Afghanistan.

On Oct 10, the Taliban laid a 22-hour siege to the Pakistani military headquarters in Rawalpindi, taking 39 officers and soldiers hostage before the attackers were overpowered. Five days later, the militants attacked three police establishments in Lahore.

Islamabad, Oct 23 (DPA) Iran formally asked Pakistan Friday to hand over the leader of a terrorist organisation allegedly involved in a series of deadly attacks, including last weekend’s suicide blast that killed at least 42 Iranians.

Iran says that Abdolmalik Rigi, head of Jundollah (Soldiers of God) militant group, is hiding in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan region to orchestrate several terrorist attacks inside Iran.

The demand to hand over Rigi was delivered by Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar during his meeting with Pakistani counterpart, Rehman Malik, in Islamabad.

‘The Iranian asked to hand over Rigi during the meeting,’ a senior official of Pakistan’s interior ministry said on condition of anonymity.

‘But we told him that he (Rigi) is not here. We also told him that Pakistan is victim of terrorism and we are ready to extend cooperation,’ he said.

The official said Pakistan had arrested two suspected terrorists wanted by Iran but they would be expatriated once the process of identification of the suspects is completed.

Najjar arrived in Pakistan Friday in a bid to convince its leaders to cooperate in combatting Jundollah, a Sunni group that accuses Shia Iranians of committing crimes against the Sunni minority sect.

Jundollah took responsibility for the suicide attack on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in its southwestern Sistan-Baluchistan area along Pakistan’s border. The attack killed at least 15 guards, including six senior commanders, and 27 civilians last weekend.

The deadly bombing strained relations between the two Asian countries as Tehran maintained that Rigi is supported by the US and Britain and is using Pakistan soil with the connivance of certain high-ranking Pakistani officials to destabilise the Islamic regime.

President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad alleged Pakistan’s involvement in the suicide attack. On Tuesday a commander of elite Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Pakpour, asked the government to let his force go after the terrorists in Pakistan.

Islamabad, Oct 23 – Twenty five people were killed and 27 injured Friday in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.

The bombings took place as the army continued its operations in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan.

Eighteen people, including women and children, were killed while six people were injured, when a bus carrying a marriage party was blown up in a landmine explosion in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency. The bus carrying a marriage party was struck the anti tank mine planted by militants in Lakro area, Geo News reported.

At another terror attack on the military establishment, a suicide bomber riding a bicycle blew himself up at a security checkpost near Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra.

A police official told Geo TV that seven people, including two securitymen, were killed while the injured were taken to Attock Hospital.

The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra is the country’s major air force maintenance and research hub, Dawn News reported.

Some foreign military experts have suggested it is a possible place to keep aircraft that can carry nuclear warheads. The army has denied that the facility is tied to the nuke programme.

Friday’s third blast took place in Peshawar’s residential Hayatabad area.

Eyewitnesses told DawnNews that the blast was heard in front of the city’s popular Swan restaurant.

The front wall of the restaurant was damaged and car parts littered the area, suggesting that a car bomb had gone off.

Police say at least eight people have been injured in the blast.

The terror attacks come just a day after a senior Pakistani Army officer, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier.

Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was former deputy director general military operations, was killed by gunmen who ambushed his jeep.

Over 170 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the UN World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.

The most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.

On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. At least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed in a single day.

A twin suicide bombing Oct 20 at the International Islamic University here killed seven people.

Islamabad, Oct 23 – Eighteen people were killed when a bus carrying a marriage party was blown up in a landmine explosion in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency.

According to Geo News, the marriage party bus was struck with anti tank mine planted by militants in Lakro area.

Eighteen people, including women and children, were killed while six people were injured.

Islamabad, Oct 23 – Seven people were killed and 13 injured Friday when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Pakistan’s Attock district while eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.

The bombings took place as the army continued to tighten its grip in the country’s restive northwest region dominated by Taliban fighters.

A suicide bomber riding a bicycle blew himself up at a security checkpost near Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra.

A police official told Geo TV that seven people, including two securitymen, were killed while the injured were taken to Attock Hospital.

The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra is the country’s major air force maintenance and research hub, Dawn News reported.

Some foreign military experts have suggested it as a possible place to keep aircraft that can carry nuclear warheads. The army has denied that the facility is tied to the programme.

A second blast took place in Peshawar’s residential Hayatabad area Friday.

Eyewitnesses told DawnNews that the blast was heard in front of the city’s popular Swan restaurant.

The front wall of the restaurant was damaged and car parts littered the area, suggesting that it was a car bomb blast.

Police say at least eight people have been injured in the blast.

The bombing comes just a day after a senior Pakistani Army officer, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier.

Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was former deputy director general military operations, was killed by gunmen who ambushed his jeep.

Over 170 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the UN World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.

The most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.

On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. At least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed in a single day.

A twin suicide bombing Oct 20 at the International Islamic University here killed seven people.